From the withered tree, a flower blooms

The guys take a zen approach to landscape design and home renovation.

At the forefront of Zen’s business is Justin Webber, who has more than 10 years experience in the home renovation industry.

Webber’s path to Zen began innocently enough as a summer job. As Webber recounts, his boss at the time, recognizing Webber’s abilities, felt that Webber could be successful working in renovation for his career. For Webber, he saw appeal in being able to take pride in the work that he did. 

“I really like the aspect of construction that you can stand back, when it’s fi nished, look at it and say ‘I did that. This didn’t look like this before I started and I take a lot of pride in the fi nished product.’”

As Webber grew in his chosen fi eld, he received training by his previous employers (who he recounts as having one of the best reputations of builders in Winnipeg) to be able to work in a variety of renovation disciplines. This has been of great benefi t to him and led to Webber being able to take his multi-faceted skill set and bring it to his new business venture, along with a fantastic crew that includes Construction Manager Brett Fisher.

“It seemed like the right time with the way that residential construction is going,” Webber says. “I noticed a fairly fundamental fl aw, in that everybody specializes in one thing – fences and decks, concrete, landscaping… we’ve been trained to do all of them. That’s been the biggest benefit to me so far. People have come to me asking me to build a fence or deck, then say, ‘oh wow, you do landscaping?’ or vice-versa.

“The majority of homeowners that I’ve worked for are more than happy to just deal with one contractor,” he adds. ”It’s ease and convenience; they would rather call me and say ‘you do the fence, the deck and the landscaping. I see one person.’”

Part of the ease also comes with being able to avoid the pitfalls of working a master schedule. Along with the complexity of fi nding a time when each responsibility can be fi lled – which at the best of times can be hard to schedule on an individual basis – can become that much more burdensome when you are trying to synchronize their availabilities to avoid confl icts.

By working solely with Zen, Webber remarks that clients are able to escape this frustration.

“Fence and deck guys are booked all summer long, it’s so hard to get a concrete guy or a landscaper for that matter. So a lot of people that are spending on a house would much rather have it be convenient where they don’t have to organize the timeline and order the fence guy after – they call me, I come in, I do the job from beginning to end and it seems to work out really well.”

Trendspotting?

Having worked in outdoor renovation for more than a decade, Webber has seen a lot of changes in the industry; but perhaps surprisingly, the biggest change hasn’t been in the designs, colours or other “traditional” trends that people may thing of at fi rst. Instead, he explains, the way his work is done and the materials used are the biggest variances that he sees in his jobs.

“Things change and you want to keep up with the times; but what I’ve noticed most is the technology and standards of how to do things change. Construction is pretty foolproof – there’s a right way and a not right way to do it,” he says. “It’s fairly straight forward that way; but the products and materials you use all change. There’s always new advancement in changing the products you use, the smaller things that go with that.”

Spotting a trend and, thus, knowing what work one wants done, can be a diffi cult process for the consumer. Thus, it may not surprise you to learn that Zen’s clients divide nearly 50/50 for clients that come into a project knowing what they want, and those that ask for their professional opinion.

“Some people have an exact idea of what they want to see, and that’s a great benefi t to have as a homeowner,” he says, “and then other people have an idea of what they’d like to include or the likes and dislikes they have. Then, you include those in the fi nal design, but they don’t have a real direction for that.”

Still, there is another segment that Zen encounters, one which allows them to really get their creative juices fl owing.

“Some people have no idea and don’t care at all. It’s a blank canvas,” Webber says. “A lot of the new areas, new homes and larger properties are blank canvases, and that’s where I really like to work. You walk in, it’s a mud back yard and they say ‘I want to have a little sod, but I want a deck and a patio, pick the colours…”

At this point, Webber turns to a trusted associate in the business. “I work with designer Dawn Swirsky from Grass Knot Designs that I subcontract specifi cally because she’s been in the industry for even longer than I have. She came really highly recommended to me, so I contract out to her, and every design [she creates] is incredibly different. There is no trend with us.”